I was so glad to see her that I as nearly as possible made an idiot
of myself. Indeed, I was just on the point of stepping forward and
recklessly claiming her acquaintance, when something in Mercia's face
made me pause. She had gone very pale, and I could see that the hand
which was resting on her companion's sleeve had unconsciously
tightened. Her troubled eyes looked momentarily into mine with an
expression partly of fear, partly, it seemed to me, of relief.
Then she moved on, and the next instant I heard someone behind me
pronounce my name. I turned instinctively, and found myself face to
face with Lord Lammersfield, the handsome, elderly, debonair
statesman who had stopped me on the previous day in Park Lane. In
evening dress, and wearing the ribbon of the Garter, he made a
strikingly distinguished figure.
"Ah, Northcote," he said, with an easy wave of his hand, "I was just
wondering whether you had arrived. It's a mere matter of chance,
finding anyone in this human maelstrom."
With an effort I pulled myself together.
"Yes," I said lightly. "Sangatte ought to provide a crier and a
bell. Not that the latter would be much use."
Lord Lammersfield smiled cynically. "The human voice," he remarked,
"is a very curious thing. Singly, it can be charming;
collectively--" He shrugged his shoulders.
"Collectively," I finished, "it strikes me as the most unpleasant of
all animal noises."
"An excellent description," said Lammersfield. "Suppose we exchange
it for the smoking-room and a couple of Sangatte's cigarettes. I
want to talk over one or two matters, if you can spare me ten
minutes."
"Why, certainly," I replied; and turning from the door of the
ballroom, I accompanied Lammersfield across the crowded landing and
down a long gallery hung with family portraits. The smoking-room was
at the extreme end, and when we entered we found ourselves in
solitary possession.
I naturally felt curious as to what the "one or two matters" might be
which a Cabinet Minister was anxious to discuss. It was just
possible, I reflected, that Northcote might have been mixing himself
up with politics, and as I was vastly ignorant of such things myself,
I was keenly on my guard lest I should betray the fact by some inept
remark.
My mind was soon to be relieved on this point, but in a totally
unexpected fashion. As a matter of fact, Lammersfield's opening
words baffled me much more than any political observation could
possibly have done.
"It's no good beating about the bush, Northcote," he said quietly.
"I haven't got the money at present, and it is quite impossible for
me to raise it."
If, in my surprise, I didn't blurt out, "What money?" it was more by
the grace of Heaven than from any particular intelligence on my part.
"To put matters quite frankly," continued Lammersfield pleasantly, "I
am in your hands. If you choose to press me, I shall have to sell up
Cranleigh and retire from politics. The British public will forgive
anything on the part of its leaders except adultery or loss of money.
The latter, I believe, is regarded as the greater crime of the two,
especially when, as in my case, it arises from a long period of
unsuccessful racing. Should you care to wait, I will pay you
directly I have the opportunity. On the other hand, if my present
diabolic fortune pursues me much longer, there will probably be
nothing left of Cranleigh for you to realise on."
By this time I had recovered myself sufficiently to grasp the
situation. It was plain that Northcote must have lent money to Lord
Lammersfield--a large sum of money, from the way the latter was
speaking--and that the nominal day of reckoning was at hand. What
Northcote's object had been I had no idea, but I realised with rapid
satisfaction that it put me in the position of being able to do a
good turn to a man who might prove extremely useful. There is
nothing more agreeable than being generous with other people's money,
and I determined to make the most of my opportunity.
"There is an Indian proverb, Lord Lammersfield," I observed, "which
says that 'Hurry is the Devil.' In the present instance I am
inclined to agree with it."
"It would certainly be the devil to me," admitted his lordship
frankly. "My five thousand a year from the Home Office is all that I
have to live on at present. If I can hold out till next year, things
ought to right themselves a little. There will be some insurance
money coming in in the spring, and I have a couple of yearlings at
Cranleigh, on which Morris is building very high hopes. Still we can
hardly consider them a trust security!"
I laughed. If only an average Liberal voter could have overheard his
respected leader, what a study his face would have been. I began to
wonder whether all Cabinet Ministers were as delightfully human as
Lord Lammersfield.
"Well," I said, knocking the end off my cigarette, "they are good
enough for me. I rather like a slightly speculative investment."
If my companion failed to satisfy one or two of the conventional
ideas of a successful British statesman, he was at least the master
of his emotions. He received my words without the faintest change of
expression.
"It might sound a little ironical to say that I am deeply indebted to
you, Northcote," he answered. Then he paused. "To be quite candid,"
he added, "I never expected that you would take this--how shall we
put it?--impersonal attitude. Your last letter on the subject--"
"Ah!" I interrupted quickly, inwardly anathematising Northcote.
"We'll dismiss that last letter if you have no objection. I have
changed my mind since then."
Lammersfield accepted this eminently true information with a
courteous inclination of his head.
"As you please," he said. "You leave me under an immense obligation
to you. I can only add that if there is any matter in which I can be
of service to you, now or at any time, you mustn't hesitate to
mention it. The Home Secretaryship is a singularly distasteful
office to an intelligent man, but it has at least the merit of
putting one in a position to be occasionally useful to one's friends."
I smiled. His lordship's cynical outlook on human nature and on the
privileges of Cabinet rank amused me intensely. He was evidently
prepared for some request on my part in return for the favour I had
done him, and I wondered what Northcote would have asked if he had
been in my place. I had no doubt that my enterprising double must
have had some purpose at the back of his mind when he originally
advanced the money.
Throwing away my cigarette into the fire, I got up from my chair.
"Thanks very much," I said; "but at present I don't think there is
anything I want to bother Whitehall about. I shall remember your
offer, though. Perhaps some day I may get arrested for exceeding the
speed limit."
Lord Lammersfield laughed dryly. "I shall hold myself in readiness
for a summons to Holloway," he said with a bow. "Meanwhile, suppose
we return to the scene of festivity. In a weak moment I said I would
introduce some protégée of my wife's to several of our leading
statesmen; and although, personally, I don't admire the young lady's
taste, after all, a promise is a promise."
As fate would have it, almost the first person I saw as we re-entered
the ballroom was Mercia. She was standing against the wall,
listening rather absently to a sombre-looking gentleman with long
grey whiskers, whom I recognised from his pictures as one of His
Majesty's most incompetent judges. A sudden determination seized me,
and I turned to Lammersfield.
"You know everybody," I said. "Who's that pretty girl over there
with old Beauchamp?"
He looked across. "Ah yes! charming, isn't she? Beauchamp makes up
in taste what he lacks in intelligence. She is a discovery of Lady
Tregattock's, I believe--a Miss de Rosen. They are reported to have
picked her up somewhere in South America. I will introduce you to
her if you like."
With the memory of "Francis" still pleasantly fresh in my mind, this
information about Lady Tregattock was, to say the least, a trifle
startling. However, Lammersfield's keen eyes were on my face, and I
managed to suppress any sign of surprise.
"Well, if it's not bothering you too much," I said carelessly.
"On the contrary," he returned, "I should consider it an amiable duty
to rescue any attractive young woman from Beauchamp."
I followed him across the room to where the ill-assorted pair were
standing.
"Miss de Rosen," he said, with a courteous bow, "may I have the
pleasure of introducing a friend of mine--Mr. Stuart Northcote."
Then, turning with a smile to the judge, he added lightly, "Ah,
Beauchamp, you're the very man I want to see. Can you spare him a
moment, Miss de Rosen? I'll leave Northcote to entertain you."
The thing was done so smoothly and with such delightful dexterity
that, almost before I realised it, I was left alone with Mercia, and
Lammersfield was strolling off, with his hand on the shoulder of an
exceedingly annoyed-looking judge.
"If I am ever tried for my life," I said, with a smile, "I hope
Beauchamp won't be on the Bench." Then, without waiting for a reply,
I added abruptly, "I want to talk to you. Can we get out of this and
find a couple of seats somewhere?"
She accepted my arm, and the mere touch of her hand upon my sleeve
filled me with a ridiculous sense of happiness. We made our way
through the crowded ballroom and down the broad staircase into the
hall below, where desultory carriage-loads of late-comers were still
arriving. To the right of the hall was a conservatory--a wonderful
fairyland of azaleas and other flowering shrubs; and in the far
corner, under the shelter of a couple of giant palms, I found two
comfortable and fairly secluded chairs.
Mercia had seemed very charming to me the other night, but here, in
the softly shaded light which gleamed upon her bare shoulders and
just revealed that strange look of sorrow and tragedy in her eyes,
her beauty held me in a kind of enchanted silence.
"I have been wondering if I should ever see you again," I said at
last, with a little sigh of satisfaction.
She looked up at me with a sudden flash of anger that was amazingly
becoming.
"Aren't you satisfied yet?" she said bitterly. "You have made me
hate and despise myself for the rest of my life. Do you suppose that
I can ever see you without remembering that I have betrayed my
father?"
"If you mean that you would have pleased your father by putting a
bullet through my head," I returned, "I think you are misjudging him."
She leant forward, her hand resting on the arm of the chair and her
dark eyes fixed almost piteously on mine. "I wish I understood," she
said. "Somehow, I can't believe that you are lying to me, and yet--"
"And yet?" I echoed, as she paused.
She turned away with a little gesture of despair. "I pray to God,"
she said wearily, "that after to-night we shall never meet again."
"There is a good chance of your prayer being granted," I
remarked--"at least, if one may judge by my experience yesterday."
She looked up quickly. "What do you mean?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "Only that a butler I engaged in the
morning made a highly creditable attempt to murder me in the middle
of the night."
I saw her face turn pale. "Oh!" she said, and she laid her hand upon
her breast. "Were you--were you hurt?" she faltered.
"No," I said, "I wasn't hurt. I am afraid the butler was, rather;
but that was his fault. It's so difficult to see what one's doing in
the dark." Then I paused and looked her full in the face. "The
curious thing is," I added, "that the man was sent to me with
excellent references from Sir Henry Tregattock."
She met my gaze without flinching, but the last vestige of colour had
left her cheeks.
"Sir Henry Tregattock?" she repeated in a kind of mechanical way.
"That's right," I went on, assuming a cheerful, confidential tone.
"I got the fellow through Seagrave's--those people just off Hanover
Square. There was no mistake about it, because I'd been round there
myself in the morning, and Seagrave had assured me that not only was
the reference all that it ought to be, but that he had rung up
Tregattock, and had it confirmed over the telephone."
She started very slightly, recovering herself at once. "Yes," she
said in a whisper.
I lay back in my chair, rather enjoying myself, though I must confess
I felt a bit of a brute. "Now we come to the interesting part of the
story," I said. "This morning I learned from Seagrave that not only
was the reference a forged one, but that somebody else had actually
answered the telephone in Tregattock's absence. Sir Henry himself,
apparently, knew nothing whatever about the matter."
She was silent for a moment, her brows slightly knitted and a puzzled
expression in her eyes. "I don't understand," she said at last.
"Why did you want a new butler? The other night--there was a man
there--"
"Ah, yes," I interrupted; "the excellent Milford. But, you see, some
of your friends had been kind enough to poison him."
"Poison him!" she echoed; and then, leaning forward, she stared at me
in obviously genuine horror. "Do you mean that he is dead?"
"Oh dear, no," I said lightly. "We are rather a tough couple,
Milford and I. Still, they did their best--and, after all, you can't
throw stones you know! You missed me shockingly at five yards."
I am afraid the last little pleasantry was rather wasted. Mercia had
momentarily covered her face with her hands, and when she took them
down I saw that her beautiful eyes were alight with anger and
indignation.
"But this is dreadful!" she broke out. "I did not know--I--I had
heard something, but indeed I did not know. It--" She checked
herself abruptly.
"It was the genial M. Guarez, no doubt," I said. "Just the kind of
thing I should expect from a man with a name like that. I really
didn't imagine that you had anything to do with it."
"What time," she asked, speaking rather more calmly, "did these
people ring up the telephone?"
I shook my head. "I don't know the exact hour, but I can find out.
Anyhow, it was on Wednesday afternoon."
"Ah!" she said, with a quick little intake of her breath. Then she
paused. "You know that I am living with the Tregattocks?" she added.
"Lammersfield has just told me," I answered. "But it doesn't matter.
I am going down to Woodford to-morrow, to stay with Maurice
Furnivall, so you are not likely to have the distressing experience
of coming across me again--at all events for a few days."
She looked at me strangely. "You think you will be safer there?" she
asked.
I laughed. "Well, things can't be much more strenuous than they are
in town; and, after all, Maurice is my cousin, you know."
"Your cousin!" she repeated half incredulously; and then a sudden
light of revelation dawned in her eyes. With a quick gesture, she
leaned forward and laid her hand on my sleeve. "Don't go," she said
hurriedly. "I--"
At that moment there was a sound of footsteps in the hall, and round
the corner of the palm trees came the ever-to-be-accursed figure of
Mr. Justice Beauchamp.
"Ah, Miss de Rosen," he began, with the kind of ponderous fatuity
that passes for humour on the Bench, "I find you like the Arab maiden
beneath the palms."
Mercia, dear thing, smiled in her most charming manner. "And for the
same reason," she said lightly. "The ballroom is unbearably hot."
"Without the other attractions of the desert," I added. "There, at
least, one's toes are not trodden on."
"Nevertheless," observed the judge, addressing Mercia and
ostentatiously disregarding me, "with your permission, I am going to
take you away from your oasis. On my way to rejoin you, I met Sir
Henry. He is anxious for a moment's conversation with you, and I
promised to bring you back with me."
He offered his arm, and, after hesitating for the fraction of a
second, Mercia got up gracefully from her chair and accepted it.
As she did so, she flashed one swift glance at me. "You must tell me
the rest of your story later in the evening, Mr. Northcote," she said.
I bowed, and then stood there for a moment, looking after them, as
the garrulous old gentleman, who obviously imagined that he had
scored off me, conducted her triumphantly out of the conservatory.
They had certainly left me something to think about. That Mercia was
living with the Tregattocks, under another name, was in itself a
startling bit of information; while, taken in conjunction with the
forged testimonial and its fraudulent confirmation, it began to throw
light on several previously rather dark corners. And yet I fully
believed her denial of any complicity in the Milford affair. Of
course she had tried to shoot me, but, somehow or other, that seemed
a very different sort of thing. Poisoning butlers was a branch of
assassination with which I could not associate Mercia at all.
I began to wonder how she had got to know the Tregattocks.
Lammersfield had said something about their having picked her up in
South America, and this fitted in accurately enough with my
suspicions of the other evening. Her own phrase, "the Satyr of
Culebra," suddenly recurred to my mind, and I remembered that I had
never hunted up the place on the map, as I had meant to. Tregattock,
I knew, had been Minister in Bolivia for some years, so it was more
than possible that he too was mixed up in my unknown and apparently
very shady past.
Then there was Maurice, whom at present I was quite unable to fit
into the picture. Mercia, had, for some reason or other, given me a
pretty plain hint that that amiable young gentleman was not to be
trusted--and, indeed, Northcote's words and my own instincts had
already led me to a similar conclusion. And yet, if he was a cousin,
and one whom Northcote had apparently always treated well, why on
earth should he be mixed up with Mercia and those Dago friends of
hers, who, probably for excellent reasons of their own, were so eager
to finish my career? It was just possible that, as my nearest
relation, he might have an eye on my ill-gotten gains; but one
hesitated to accept quite such a damning theory even about Maurice.
I was still puzzling my brains over all these infernal complications
when a quick step sounded on the tessellated pavement, and, looking
up, I saw Lord Sangatte coming briskly towards me.
"Good!" he said. "I thought I might find you here. Come along into
the study."
To tell the truth, in the excitement of meeting Mercia, I had
forgotten all about the appointment he had made, and his running
across me in this opportune fashion was just a stroke of luck.
However, naturally enough, I didn't inform his lordship of this fact,
but accompanied him across the conservatory towards a door on the
farther side, which he opened with a small Yale key. I was certainly
having a most entertaining evening.
Sangatte's "study" was just the sort of room I should have expected.
That is to say that, with the exception of a large writing-desk,
there were no indications that it had ever been the scene of that
severe mental energy suggested by its title. Its chief furniture
seemed to be a plentiful supply of easy-chairs, a large tantalus
spirit-stand, and a very professional-looking card-table in the
farther corner.
My noble host started the proceedings by carefully locking the door.
Then observing that "a drink wouldn't be a bad thing," he poured out
a couple of stiff brandies-and-sodas, and handed one of them to me.
"I wanted that," he said, setting down the empty glass. "I'm just
about played out, Northcote, I can tell you. A week of this awful
entertaining business would finish me. Have a smoke?"
He held out a cigar-box, and I helped myself to a very promising
Laranage.
"Yes," I said, "I can imagine a pleasanter way of spending the
evening."
He laughed sourly. "Well, they're going to pay for it--that's one
consolation."
Crossing the room to the desk, he opened a drawer, and took out
several sheets of typewritten paper.
"Here it is," he said, handing them over to me. "Rosedale and I
roughed it out after our last talk with you. I expect you'd like to
take it home with you, but you might run through it first, and see if
anything strikes you now. I shall be seeing Rosedale again
to-morrow."
With a pleasing sense of anticipation, I accepted the papers, and
settled myself down comfortably in one of the easy-chairs. One
glance showed me that I held in my hand the rough draft of a
prospectus, for across the top of the first page, in big capital
letters, ran the following announcement:--
THE AMALGAMATED GOLDFIELDS
OF SOUTH AMERICA LTD.
CAPITAL £2,000,000.